UPDATE: It's Official! Carlisle To New Line

My report last night, Is This Russell’s New Line Replacement?, is spot on: I can confirm that Chris Carlisle, exec V-P of marketing at Fox Broadcasting Co since 2004, is taking Russell Schwartz’s New Line job and the title of President of Marketing. This is a very bold move by New Line, so I’ll be fascinated to see how it works. (A savvy reader reminds me that years ago New Line hired another Fox network and 20th Century Fox movie marketing exec, Chris Pula.) Carlisle has shown himself to be an out-of-the-box thinker on the cutting edge of TV-type promotion. A one-time FX marketing exec, Carlisle got to Fox and famously launched Fox’s TV medical drama House by distributing free DVDs of the pilot through Entertainment Weekly and People magazines. Most recently, he helped Fox make its commercial breaks more entertaining (since Nielsen’s ad ratings data are taken seriously by advertisers) with animated clips about a taxi driver known as “Oleg”. Then, in May, Fox Broadcasting morphed its marketing department into an in-house ad agency called Fox Infinity with Carlisle in charge. The idea was to enable Fox to produce original promotional content more quickly and uniformly for the network, new media initiatives, other divisions of News Corp. and even Fox’s media clients. Well, now Carlisle is New Line bound: for what he’ll be up against, see my previous: Another Reason Why Bob Shaye Is A Prick.)